Women’s Political Representation in the Post-Soviet Space: Factors in (Re-)Election

Kristina Gushchina

The problem of female political representation has been of particular salience in the recent decades. According to 2017 data, the world average percentage of women in legislatures is 23.4 percent for the single/lower house, 18.3 percent at the ministerial level, and 27 percent at the judicial level. Considering that women constitute roughly half of the world’s population, we can clearly see that they remain highly underrepresented in state agencies. Moreover, women’s political representation varies considerably among world’s regions and between countries. However, there is still no consensus among scholars on the factors that influence female political representation in particular regions of the world. Some factors work better in developed countries - both politically and socio-economically - while others work better in developing countries. One of the regions that remains under-studied is the Post-Soviet space. This dissertation project aims to close this gap in the literature. It conducts the first quantitative longitudinal analysis of the macro- and micro-level factors that have had an impact on women’s political representation in fifteen countries in the period 1991-2015. Project duration: October 2016 to March 2020.